About the project

S.E.N.S VR is the first virtual reality experience adapted from a graphic novel. Comic artist Marc-Antoine Mathieu has long explored the outer boundaries of the comics genre in each of his books, including S.E.N.S. Game designers, Charles Ayats and Armand Lemarchand, were fully aware of the wide potential as a dream world to be explored in virtual reality.

The writing thus plays with the codes of the graphic novel and, through virtual reality, opens wide the field of exploration to become a narrative and one-of-a-kind sensory experience. In S.E.N.S VR, you have to heed all the proposed indications. Most of the time,they will be concealed under volumes difficult to understand, hidden under the sand, or in the recesses of a graphic illusion. You animate objects with just a simple glance that, in turn, reply by showing you the way.

The game takes liberties as it cuts across the codes of the various genres: those of comic books, video games, and virtual reality. The character’s duplication (seen internally and externally), the purified space and the story line – almost a philosophical tale – make it unique and yet readily comprehensible to a wide audience.

Preview

Credits

A co-production of Arte France and Red Corner.
Based on the graphic novel by Marc-Antoine Mathieu.
Co-Author and Interactive Designer: Charles Ayats.
Co-author and Technical Game/Level Designer: Armand Lemarchand.
Sound: Broohaha.
Producer: Marie Blondiaux.
Creative technologyst: Calculmentor.
Creative developer: Simon Sunrise Albou.
Pattern maker: Antoine Monange.
With the participation of François Klimczak, Thomas Ognibene, Benjamin Malartre & Max Vallon on animations.

Creator bios

Marc-Antoine Mathieu graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Angers, France, before working as a graphic-designer at an agency specializing in the creation of exhibitions. In 1990, he published his first album, The Origin, which provided him notoriety after winning numerous awards, including the ‘Alph-Art Coup de Coeur Prize’ at the Angoulême Comics Festival in 1991. With over a dozen albums published and numerous awards to his credit, Marc-Antoine Mathieu is now a key author of the French graphic novel.

Charles Ayats obtained a Master’s degree in Interactive Digital Experience from the École de l’image Les Gobelins in Paris. As an interactive designer of interactive documentaries, he creates participatory experiences, often enriched with game mechanics to facilitate transmission of knowledge, for example Type: Rider (2013) on the history of typography. Always on the lookout for new formats to tell his stories, he is particularly interested in virtual reality, as SENS VR, an adaptation of a French absurd graphic novel.

Armand Lemarchand studied multimedia design at the Institut universitaire de technologie de Laval in France. He divides his time between teaching at the SupInfoGame at the École de l’image Les Gobelins and creating games for the new gaming supports. He has created numerous projects on Facebook and for the Playsoft and Heliceum studios as head of design. Fascinated by programming, he tests out his projects at the High Five Factory, developing games for smartphones and tablets.